By Alicia Ambrosio, Catholic Herald Staff

On Milwaukee’s south side, just behind Prince of Peace/Principe de Paz Parish, the mid-summer sun beats down on a young, dark-haired woman bent over an abundant patch of collard greens. Steps away a boy, not yet 2 years old, watches and tentatively tries to emulate her actions. The collard greens, however, are taller than he is and he resigns himself to watching from outside the garden patch.

The woman working in the garden is Elba Santiago, member of Southside Parents Against Lead, a group started at the 16th Street Community Clinic. The boy is her son, Andy, and he has high levels of lead in his body due to lead contamination prevalent in homes in the area.

The collard greens Santiago is picking will help lower the levels of lead in Andy’s body.

“I put the greens in everything,” Santiago said. “I want him to have the lowest lead levels possible.”

She is able to put collard greens “in everything” because of the community garden, a joint venture between the 16th Street Community Clinic and Prince of Peace/Principe de Paz Parish.

Carmen Bolorin of the 16th Street Community Clinic said, in a telephone interview with your Catholic Herald, that fresh, green, vitamin-rich foods are the best thing for helping to lower lead levels in children. However, for many parents in the community it’s not economically possible to buy fresh greens daily. The Southside Parents Against Lead, a group of 35 parents, came up with the idea of starting a communal garden so that they could give their kids the fresh greens they need for free.

Many had tried to start their own personal gardens in their back-yards, but either the soil was contaminated by lead or would become contaminated by paint chips that would fall off the contaminated homes and onto the soil.

The Southside Parents group approached the city about getting a plot of city land on which to work. Although the city promised to give them a plot of land, that promise fell through, according to Bolorin.

Santiago said, “We already went to get training to learn how to grow all this stuff, but we didn’t have a place for the garden.”

Desperate for a location, the parents started walking and driving through the neighborhood looking for empty plots of land. That was how they stumbled upon two plots of land owned by Prince of Peace/Principe de Paz.

“We thought maybe it was city land,” said Santiago, “so Carmen (Bolorin) did some investigating and found out that it actually belonged to the church and we went to talk to them about our idea for a garden.”

The parish had been holding on to the two plots of land with the idea of turning one into a parish garden and the other into a soccer field, but it didn’t know where to start.

“We had the training to start the garden and they had the land and the desire for a garden. It was perfect,” said Santiago.

Together with Growing Power, an organization based on Milwaukee’s northwest side that teaches adults and youth the basics of sustainable farming, the 16th Street Community Clinic and Prince of Peace/Principe de Paz built a mound on which to plant tomatoes, collard greens, squash, peppers, broccoli, and jalapenos. Parents from the 16th Street Clinic are in the garden every Tuesday at 10 a.m. to pick the vegetables and care for the garden. The garden is a full-time project that has united the neighborhood.

“I come early in the morning to water because at 10 it’s too hot,” explained Santiago. “The neighbors (on the south side of the garden) let us use their water and the other neighbor (on the north side) watches to make sure that nobody gets in when we’re not here. Two neighbors from the other side of the park come over once in awhile and look at the garden and make sure everything is OK.”

Prince of Peace/Principe de Paz also provided a picnic table for the garden and various volunteer groups in the parish weed the garden as needed.

Anyone who works in the garden is welcome to take home produce, and often so much is picked that the parents are able to give vegetables to other parents referred to them by the Community Clinic’s lead awareness program.

The Community Clinic hopes to sustain the garden for two years and eventually expand it from two rows to four rows. Martha Furst, director of administrative services at Prince of Peace/Principe de Paz, said, “It doesn’t look like a lot, but I think it’s really neat.”

Be An Informed Catholic!


To read the rest of this week's news, visit the Catholic Herald web site.

Click here to subscribe to the Catholic Herald.